Certain cell membrane proteins are responsible for the selective permeability of the cell to small molecules. Reconstitution of transport function into phospholipid vesicle has provided the strongest evidence to date as to the molecular identity of such membrane transport proteins. Reconstitution of transport function has recently been used as an assay and as a physical tool ("transport specificity fractionation") for purification of the sugar transport system in red blood cell membranes. The initial objective of the research proposed herein is to extend this type of approach to the study of another subclass of these transport proteins--electrically and chemically regulated ion gates in nerve cells. We will be specifically focusing on the identification, purification and characterization of the axonal sodium gate (a component essential for the transmission of electrical signals along nerve fibers) and the post synaptic ionic channel that is opened by L-glutamate (one of the components that sense the chemical signals sent from one nerve cell to another). Identification and purification of these components would be a key step in elucidating, on a molecular level, their roles in the regulation and production of the electrical activity of the nervous system.